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War

Definition: War

War

Noun

1. The waging of armed conflict against an enemy; "thousands of people were killed in the war".

2. A legal state created by a declaration of war and ended by official declaration during which the international rules of war apply; "war was declared in November but actual fighting did not begin until the following spring".

3. An active struggle between competing entities; "a price war"; "a war of wits"; "diplomatic warfare".

4. A concerted campaign to end something that is injurious; "the war on poverty"; "the war against crime".

Verb

1. Make or wage war.

Source: WordNet 1.7.1 Copyright © 2001 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
 

Date "war" was first used in popular English literature: sometime before 1010. (references)

 

Specialty Definition: War

DomainDefinition

Satire

WAR, n. A by-product of the arts of peace. The most menacing political condition is a period of international amity. The student of history who has not been taught to expect the unexpected may justly boast himself inaccessible to the light. "In time of peace prepare for war" has a deeper meaning than is commonly discerned; it means, not merely that all things earthly have an end -- that change is the one immutable and eternal law -- but that the soil of peace is thickly sown with the seeds of war and singularly suited to their germination and growth. It was when Kubla Khan had decreed his "stately pleasure dome" -- when, that is to say, there were peace and fat feasting in Xanadu -- that he heard from afar Ancestral voices prophesying war. One of the greatest of poets, Coleridge was one of the wisest of men, and it was not for nothing that he read us this parable. Let us have a little less of "hands across the sea," and a little more of that elemental distrust that is the security of nations. War loves to come like a thief in the night; professions of eternal amity provide the night. Source: Devil's Dictionary.

19th Century Satire

A wholesale means of making heroes which, if planned in a small way, would produce only murderers. Source: Foolish Dictionary, 1904.

Bible

War The Israelites had to take possession of the Promised Land by conquest. They had to engage in a long and bloody war before the Canaanitish tribes were finally subdued. Except in the case of Jericho and Ai, the war did not become aggressive till after the death of Joshua. Till then the attack was always first made by the Canaanites. Now the measure of the iniquity of the Canaanites was full, and Israel was employed by God to sweep them away from off the face of the earth. In entering on this new stage of the war, the tribe of Judah, according to divine direction, took the lead. In the days of Saul and David the people of Israel engaged in many wars with the nations around, and after the division of the kingdom into two they often warred with each other. They had to defend themselves also against the inroads of the Egyptians, the Assyrians, and the Babylonians. The whole history of Israel from first to last presents but few periods of peace. The Christian life is represented as a warfare, and the Christian graces are also represented under the figure of pieces of armour (Eph. 6:11-17; 1 Thess. 5:8; 2 Tim. 2:3, 4). The final blessedness of believers is attained as the fruit of victory (Rev. 3:21). Source: Easton's 1897 Bible Dictionary.

Dream Interpretation

To dream of war, foretells unfortunate conditions in business, and much disorder and strife in domestic affairs.
For a young woman to dream that her lover goes to war, denotes that she will hear of something detrimental to her lover's character.
To dream that your country is defeated in war, is a sign that it will suffer revolution of a business and political nature. Personal interest will sustain a blow either way.
If of victory you dream, there will be brisk activity along business lines, and domesticity will be harmonious. Source: Ten Thousand Dreams Interpreted ....

Health

Hostile conflict between organized groups of people. (references)

Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits.

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Specialty Definition: 1948 Arab-Israeli War

(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)

The 1948 Arab-Israeli War is called the War of Independence by Israelis and al Naqba, the catastrophe, by Arabs. The War was the first in a series of wars in the Arab-Israeli conflict. This war established the state of Israel as an independent state, with the rest of the British Mandate of Palestine split into areas controlled by Egypt and Transjordan.

Background

Following the defeat of the Ottoman Empire in World War I, the League of Nations granted the British a mandate over the former Ottoman possession of Palestine.

This area was the target of Zionist aspirations for a Jewish homeland or state, and thus it saw a large influx of Jewish immigrants escaping persecution in Europe and with them capital. The immigrants, the ruling British, and the Arabs came into conflict many times during the Mandate, most dramatically during the Great Uprising from 1936 to 1939, when Arab general strikes and riots targeted both the British and the Zionists. The British eventually quelled the uprising, with help from the Jewish Haganah.

At the same time, many of the surrounding Arab nations were also emerging from colonial rule. Transjordan, under the Hashemite ruler Abdullah, won independence from Britain in 1946, but it remained under heavy British influence. The British placed Abdullah's half-brother Faisal on the throne in Iraq. The Anglo-Egyptian Treaty of 1936 included provisisions by which Britain would maintain a garrison of troops on the Suez Canal. From 1945, Egypt attempted to renegotiate the terms of this treaty, which was viewed as a humiliating vestige of colonialism. Lebanon became an independent state in 1943, but French troops would not withdraw until 1946, the same year that Syria won its independence from France. The new Syrian republic, however, feared its own army, which had been organized by the French as a tool against Syrian nationalists. In 1945, Egypt, Iraq, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Transjordan, and Yemen formed the Arab League to coordinate policy between the Arab states. Iraq and Transjordan coordinating policies closely, signing a mutual defense treaty, while Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, and Saudi Arabia feared that Transjordan would annex part or all of Palestine, and use it as a basis to attack or undermine Syria, Lebanon, and the Hijaz.

On November 29, 1947, the United Nations General Assembly approved a plan which partitioned the British Mandate of Palestine into two states: one Jewish and one Arab. Each state would be composed of three major sections, linked by extraterritorial crossroads, plus an Arab enclave at Jaffa. The Greater Jerusalem area would fall under international control. Both Jews and Arabs criticised aspects of the plan. The Jewish population largely welcomed the plan, but the Arab leadership and some Jewish opposition groups rejected it.

Phases of the War

First phase: November 29, 1947 - April 1, 1948

Right after the UN partition plan was approved, heavy fighting broke out in Palestine. The British representatives, having no desire to maintain order and their force waning, effectively left the Jews and Arabs alone to fight between themselves. During the next six months, most of the fighting was be made using guerrilla tactics, small Arab and Jewish forces conducting brief gunfights at various spots, without achieving any territorial goal but for the protection of the de-facto limits.

On December 18 the Palmach, the kibbutz-based force of the Haganah commanded by Moshe Dayan, attacked the village of Khissas. Three weeks later the first Arab irregulars arrived and the Arab leadership began to organize Palestinians in order to wage guerrilla war against the Jewish forces. Some of the Arab fighting groups became the Fedayeen, the forerunners of the Palestine Liberation Organization.

The Arabs concentrated its efforts on cutting off roads to Jewish settlements and towns with mixed populations. At the end of March, the Arabs had managed to cut off the vital road going from Tel-Aviv to Jerusalem where 1/6 of Palestine's Jews lived.

The Arab League created a volunteer army, the Arab Liberation Army, led by Arab nationalist hero Fawzi Al-Qawuqji, which entered northern Palestine in January.

The Haganah armed itself with arms bought from Czechoslovakia. The Yishuv began working on a plan called Plan Dalet (or Plan D).

Second phase: April 1, 1948 - May 15, 1948

Jewish forces were militarily stronger and by May their armies had seized territory that had been assigned to the Palestinian State under the UN Partition Plan. Haganah continued its attacks on civilians. Operation Nachshon, captured the road to Jerusalem, villages along Jerusalem road were attacked and demolished. The April 9 massacre of Arabs at the village of Deir Yassin enflamed public opinion in Arab countries, pushing those countries toward sending regular troops into the conflict.

Meanwhile, frantic diplomatic activity took place between all parties. On May 10, Golda Meir represented the Yishuv in the last of a long series of clandestine meetings between the Zionists and Transjordan's King Abdullah. Whereas for months there had been a tacit agreement between the Zionists and Transjordan to prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state, with Transjordan taking over the Arab areas, at the May 10 meeting Abdullah offered the Zionists only autonomy within an enlarged Hashemite kingdom. This was unacceptable to the Zionists. Nevertheless, the Transjordanian army refrained from attacking the designated Jewish areas of Palestine in the ensuing war.

On May 13, the Arab League met and agreed to send regular troops into Palestine when the Mandate expired. Abdullah of Transjordan was named as the commander-in-chief of the Arab armies, but the various Arab armies remained largely uncoordianted throughout the war.

Third phase: May 15, 1948 - June 11, 1948

On May 14, the British Mandate expired. The State of Israel declared itself as an independent nation, and was quickly recognized by the Soviet Union, the United States, and many other countries.

Over the next few days, approximately 1,000 Lebanese, 6,000 Syrian, 4,500 Iraqi, 5,500 Egyptian, and 6,000-9,000 Transjordanian troops entered the former Mandate. Together with the few thousand irregular Arab soldiers, they faced a Zionist army numbering 30,000-35,000. Both sides increased their manpower over the following months, but the Zionist advantage grew steadily.

The heaviest fighting would occur in Jerusalem, between Transjordan's Arab Legion and the Israeli forces. Abdullah ordered Glubb Pasha, the commander of the Transjordanian Arab Legion, to enter Jerusalem on May 17, and heavy house-to-house fighting occurred between May 19 and May 28, when the Arab Legion succeeded in expelling Israeli forces from the Arab quarters of Jerusalem. Iraqi troops failed in attacks on Jewish settlements, and instead took defensive positions around Jenin, Nablus, and Tulkarm.

During the following months, the Syrian army was repelled, and so were the Palestinian irregulars and the ALA.

In the south, an Egyptian attack was able to penetrate the civilian-manned defences of several Israeli civilian kibutzes, killing their inhabitants. This attack was stopped near Ashdod.

The Israeli militia groups managed not only to maintain their military control of the Jewish territories, but to expand their holdings.

First Truce: June 11, 1948 - July 8, 1948

The UN declared a truce on May 29 which came into effect on June 11 and would last 28 days. The ceasefire was overseen by the UN mediator Folke Bernadotte. An arms embargo was declared with the intention that neither side would make any gains of the truce. But the Israeli side managed to obtain illicit weapons from Czechoslovakia, while Arab forces did not gain significantly more weapons. At the end of the truce Folke Bernadotte presented a new partition plan that would give the Galilee to the Jews and the Negev to the Arabs, both sides rejected the plan. On July 8, Egyptian forces resumed warfare, thus re-starting the fighting.

Fourth phase: July 8, 1948 - July 18, 1948

The ten days at the height of the summer inbetween the two truces was dominated by large scale Israeli offensives and an entierly defensive posture from the Arab side. The three Israeli offensives that were carried out had been carefully crafted during the first truce in anticipation for its end. Operation Dani was the most important one, aimed at securing and enlarging the corridor between Jerusalem and Tel Aviv by capturing the roadside cities Lydda (later renamed Lod) and Ramle. In a second planned stage of the operation the periphal cities Latrun and Ramallah was also to be captured.

The second plan was Operation Dekel whos aim was to capture the lower Galilee including the Arab city Nazareth. The third plan, to which fewer resources were allocted to, Operation Kedem was to secure the Old City of Jerusalem. (map of the attacks: [1]).

Operation Dani

Lydda was mainly defended by the Transjordanian Army, but also local Palestinian militias and the Arab Liberation Army was present. The city was attacked from the north via Majdal al-Sadiq and al-Muzayri'a and from the east via Khulda, al-Qubab, Jimzu and Danyal. Bombers were also used for the first time in the conflict to bombard the city. On July 11, 1948 the Zionists captured the city.

The next day, July 12, 1948 Ramle also fell to the Zionists.

July 15-16 an attack on Latrun took place but did not manage to occupy the city. A desperate second attempt occurred July 18 by units from the Yiftach Brigade equipped with armored vehicles, including two Cromwell tanks, but that attack also failed. Despite the second truce which begun on July 18 the Israeli efforts to conquer Latrun continued until July 20.

After Ramle and Lydda had been captured, the Zionist leadership was surprised to see that the inhabitants didn't flee spontaneously. That was a large problem to them as they couldn't leave such a large and hostile population in that area. Therefore some 60,000 inhabitants were forcibly expelled from their homes starting from July 14.

Operation Dekel

While Operation Dani proceeded in the centre, Operation Dekel was carried out in the north. Nazareth was captured July 16 and when the second truce took effect at 19.00 July 18, the whole lower Galilee from Haifa bay to Lake Kinneret was captured by Israel.

Operation Kedem

Originally the operation was to be done on July 8, immidiately after the first truce, by Irgun and Lehi but it was delayed by David Shaltiel possibly because he did not trust their ability after their failure to capture Deir Yassin without Haganah's assistance.

The Irgun forces that was commaned by Yehuda Lapidot (Nimrod) was to break through at The New Gate, Lehi to break through through the wall stretching from the New Gate and the Jaffa Gate and the Beit Hiron Batallion to strike from Mount Zion.

The battle was planned to begin at the Sabbath, 20.00 Friday July 16 a day before the Second Cease-fire of the Arab-Israeli war. The plan went wrong from the beginning and was first postponed first to 23.00 then to midnight. It wasn't before 02.30 that the battle actually begun. The Irgunists managed to break through at the New Gate but the other forces failed in their missions. At 05.45 in the morning Shaltiel ordered a retreat and to cease the hostilities.

Second Truce: July 18, 1948 - October 15, 1948

19.00 July 18, the second truce of the conflict went into effect after intense diplomatic efforts by the UN.

On September 16 Folke Bernadotte proposed a new partition for Palestine in which Transjordan would annex Arab areas including the Negev, al-Ramla, Lydda. A Jewish state in the whole Galilee, internationalization of Jerusalem and return or compensation for refugees. The plan was once again rejected by both sides. On the next day, September 17, Bernadotte was assassinated by the Lehi and his deputy the American Ralph Bunche replaced him.

During the truce the Israelis cleaned up the captured Arab villages. Villages where the Arab population hadn't yet left were cleansed and many of the deserted villages were dynamited for military reasons.

Fifth phase: October 15, 1948 - July 20, 1949

In December 1948, the UN General Assembly passed Resolution 194 which declared that "refugees wishing to return to their homes and live in peace with their neighbors should be permitted to do so" and that "compensation should be paid for the property of those choosing not to return." It was summarily ignored by Israel.

Aftermath

1949 Armistice Agreements

In 1949, Israel signed separate ceasefire agreements with Egypt on February 24, Lebanon on March 23, Transjordan on April 3, and Syria on July 20. Israel was able to draw its own borders, occupying 70% of Mandatory Palestine, fifty percent more than the UN partition proposal allotted them. These borders have been known afterwards as the "Green Line". The Gaza Strip and West Bank were occupied by Egypt and Transjordan respectively.

Demographic Outcome

About 750,000 Arab Palestinian refugees (See Israeli Map, French Map and Israeli Estimate), and more than 600,000 Jewish refugees (See Map and Israeli Estimate), were created during this conflict. Jewish refugees from Arab lands migrated to Israel, while Arab refugees were prevented from settling in neighbouring countries and have remained in refugee camps up to the time of writing. (For more on the flight of Palestinians, see Palestinian exodus.)

The humiliation of the Arab armies at having been routed by the Jewish forces, together with the rising nationalist frenzy in Arab nations, contributed to rising hatred for the Jews living in Arab lands. The status of Jews in Arab states varied greatly from state to state. Some observers wish to maintain that the Jewish populations were more "prevented from leaving" than "expelled". Their civil liberties, too, were in many cases vastly inferior to of their Muslim fellow citizens. For example, in Yemen, Jews were and are prohibited from carrying weapons of any type, even to the point of prohibiting traditional ceremonial Yemeni knives, carried by a large portion of the Yemeni population. The net result was that after over two thousand years of living in Arab controlled countries, the atmosphere was sufficiently anti-Jewishly charged that almost to a man, entire communities of Jews in the hundreds of thousands felt they had no option but to take leave of old homes and move to the uncertainties of the new Jewish state of Israel in effect becoming "refugees" in everything but name. These fears were compounded by the Holocaust, which took place three years before the founding of the state of Israel.

Arabs Palestinians have staged annual demonstrations and protests on May 15 of each year, one day after the anniversary of Israel's declaration of independence. The popularity and number of participants in these annual al Naqba demonstrations has varied over time, though the increasing anti-Israeli sentiment in the Middle East has tended to increase the attendance in recent years. During the al-Aqsa Intifada incited by the PLO after the failure of the Camp David 2000 Summit, the attendance at the demonstrations against Israel have increased exponentially.

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2003 invasion of Iraq

(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)

nds:Irakorlog

The 2003 invasion of Iraq began on March 20, 2003, when a large force of United States and British troops invaded Iraq, leading to the collapse of the Ba'athist Iraqi government in about three weeks and the start of the U.S.-led occupation of Iraq. Ground forces from Australia and Poland and naval forces from Denmark and Spain also took part. The international community was divided on the legitimacy of this invasion; see worldwide government positions on war on Iraq.

The start of hostilities came after the expiration of a 48-hour deadline which was set by U.S. President George W. Bush, demanding that Saddam Hussein and his two sons Uday and Qusay leave Iraq, ending the diplomatic Iraq disarmament crisis.

The U.S. name for the military campaign was Operation Enduring Freedom. The US military operations in this war were conducted under the name of Operation Iraqi Freedom. The UK military operations in this war were conducted under the name of Operation Telic. The Australian codename was Operation Falconer.

The United States, with support from approximately 45,000 British, 2,000 Australian and 200 Polish combat forces, entered Iraq primarily through their staging area in Kuwait. Coalition forces also supported Iraqi Kurdish militia troops, estimated to number upwards of 50,000. Included in these forces were groups of Australia SAS and Commando Personnel who performed Recon and combat search and rescue mission along side American and British SF units.

Timeline of the invasion

See 2003 invasion of Iraq timeline for a detailed timeline

The invasion was notably swift, with the collapse of the Iraq government and the military of Iraq in about three weeks. The oil infrastructure of Iraq was rapidly secured with limited damage in that time. Securing the oil infrastructure was considered important in order to prevent Saddam Hussein's forces from destroying it (as happened in 1991, creating environmental and economic problems).

Casualties of the invading forces were limited, while Iraqi military and civilian casualties are unknown, probably at least in the thousands. A study from the Project on Defense Alternatives ( http://www.comw.org/pda/ ), a Boston-based think tank, numbered the Iraqi casualities between 11,000 and 15,000 ( http://www.comw.org/pda/fulltext/0310rm8.pdf ), and the Iraq Body Count project numbered the civilian Iraqis injured in 20,000 ( http://www.iraqbodycount.net/editorial_aug0703.htm ).

The U.S. Third Division moved westward and then northward through the desert toward Baghdad, while the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force and a UK expeditionary force moved northward through marshland. UK forces secured Iraq's second-largest city, Basra, following two weeks of conflict, although their control of the city was limited. Preexisting electrical and water shortages continued through the conflict and looting began as Iraqi forces collapsed. While British forces began working with local Iraqi Police to enforce order, humanitarian aid began to arrive from ships landing in the port city of Umm Qasr and trucks entering the country through Kuwait.

Three weeks into the invasion U.S. forces moved into Baghdad with limited resistance, Iraqi government officials either disappeared or conceded defeat. Looting took place in the days following. It was alleged that many items in the National Museum of Iraq were amongst those things looted. The F.B.I. was soon called into Iraq to track down the stolen items. However, it has been found that the initial claims of looting of substantial portions of the collection were somewhat exaggerated. Yet, as some of the dust has settled, thousands of antiquities are still missing including 30 invaluable objects from the main collection.

There has been speculation that some objects still missing were not taken by looters after the war, but were taken by Saddam Hussein or his entourage before or during the fighting. There have also been reports that early looters had keys to vaults that held the more rare pieces and speculation of systematic removal of key artifacts. The arts and antiquities communities warned policymakers in advance of the need to secure the museums. Despite the looting being somewhat less bad than initially feared, the cultural loss of items from ancient Sumeria is significant. The accusation that US forces did not guard the museum because they were guarding the Ministry of Oil and Ministry of Interior is apparently true. The reality of the situation on the ground was that hospitals needed guarding, water plants needed guarding, and ministries with vital intelligence inside needed guarding. There were only enough US troops on the ground to guard a subset of everything that ideally needed guarding, and so some "hard choices" were made.

In the north Kurdish forces under the command of U.S. Special Forces captured oil-rich Kirkuk on April 10. On April 15, U.S. forces mostly took control of Tikrit.

As areas were secured, coalition troops began searching for the key members of Saddam Hussein's regime. These individuals were identified by a variety of means, most famously through sets of most wanted Iraqi playing cards.

George W. Bush announced, with great fanfare and a banner stating "Mission Accomplished", the end of major combat on May 1, 2003. However, this did not mean that peace returned to Iraq. The U.S.-led occupation of Iraq thereupon commenced, marked by ongoing violent conflict between the Iraqi and the occupying forces. As of Novermber 15, 2003, the total deaths of American soldiers in the Iraq war since march have reached 400. Of these the majority has been killed after the end of major hostilities on May 1. There is concern being voiced from domestic quarters comparing the situation to previous wars such as the Vietnam War.

The ongoing resistance in Iraq is concentrated in, but not limited to, an area known as the Sunni triangle and Baghdad [1]. Critics point out that the regions where violence is most common are also the most populated regions. This resistance may be described as guerilla warfare. The tactics used thus far include mortars, suicide bombers, roadside bombs, small arms fire, and RPGs, as well as purported sabotage against the oil infrastructure. There are also accusations about attacks toward the power and water infrastructure, but these are rather questionable in nature. In the only widely covered example of what some considered an attack on the power system, two US soldiers were killed, indicating that they may instead have been the target. In the purported attack against a water main, some witnesses reported seeing an explosion on the pipe, but US soldiers and repair crews on the scene stated that it did not appear to have been caused by an explosion.

There is evidence that some of the resistance is organized, perhaps by the fedayeen and other Saddam Hussein or Baath loyalists, religious radicals, Iraqis simply angered over the occupation, and foreign fighters. [1]

Events leading to the invasion

In September 2000, in the Rebuilding America's Defenses report [1], the Project for the New American Century planned an attack on Iraq, independently of whether or not Saddam Hussein remained in power. One year later, on the day of the September 11, 2001 Terrorist Attack, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld is reported to have written in his notes, "best info fast. Judge whether good enough hit S.H. [Saddam Hussein] at same time. Not only UBL [Osama bin Laden]". Shortly thereafter, the George W. Bush administration announced a War on Terrorism, accompanied by the doctrine of preemptive military action dubbed the Bush doctrine. In 2002 the Iraq disarmament crisis arose primarily as a diplomatic situation. In October 2002, the United States Congress granted President Bush the authority to wage war against Iraq. The Joint Resolution to Authorize the Use of United States Armed Forces Against Iraq was worded so as to encourage, but not require, UN Security Council approval for military action. In November 2002, United Nations actions regarding Iraq culminated in the unanimous passage of UN Security Council Resolution 1441 and the resumption of weapons inspections. The United States also began preparations for an invasion of Iraq, with a host of diplomatic, public relations and military preparations.

Payoff of Iraqi Military

Shortly after the sudden collapse of the defense of Baghdad, rumors were circulating in Iraq and elsewhere that there had been a deal struck (a "safqua") wherein the US had bribed key members of the Iraqi military elite and/or the Baath party itself to stand down. These rumors were ignored or treated dismissively in the US media and among the US public.

In late May, 2003, General Tommy Franks announced his retirement. Shortly thereafter, he confirmed in an interview with Defense Week that the US had paid Iraqi military leaders to defect. The extent of the defections and their effect on the war were not clear as of this writing (May 24, 2003).

Invasion justification and goals

The stated justification for the invasion included Iraqi production and use of weapons of mass destruction, links with terrorist organizations and human rights violations in Iraq under the Saddam Hussein government. To that end, the stated goals of the invasion, according to Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, were: to end the Saddam Hussein government and help Iraq transition to representative self-rule; to find and eliminate weapons of mass destruction and terrorists; to collect intelligence on networks of weapons of mass destruction and terrorists; to end sanctions and to deliver humanitarian support; and to secure Iraq's oil fields and resources.

No weapons of mass destruction have been reported as found as of September 21, 2003, though Saddam Hussein's government collapsed, former Palestine Liberation Front leader Abu Abbas was captured, and the oil fields and resources were rapidly secured but have since suffered continued sabotage.

After the fall of Baghdad, U.S. officials claimed that Iraqi officials were being harbored in Syria, and several high-ranking Iraqis have since been detained after being expelled from Syria.

Support and opposition

See Support and opposition for the 2003 invasion of Iraq for the full article.

The Bush administration claimed that the U.S.-led coalition against Iraq included 49 nations, a group that was frequently referred to as the "coalition of the willing". These nations provided combat troops, support troops, and logistical support for the invasion. The nations contributing combat forces were, roughly: United States (250,000), United Kingdom (45,000), Australia (2,000), Denmark (200), and Poland (54). Ten other countries were known to have offered small numbers of noncombat forces, mostly either medical teams and specialists in decontamination. In several of these countries a majority of the public was opposed to the war. In Spain polls reported at one time a 90% opposition to the war.

Popular opposition to war on Iraq led to global protests, and the war was criticized by Belgium, Russia, France, the People's Republic of China, Germany, and the Arab League.

There are some that claim the US intervention took place without any international legal framework. Others would counter by pointing out that the UN Security Council Resolutions authorizing the 1991 invasion gave legal authority to use "...all necessary means...", which is diplomatic code for going to war. This war ended with a cease fire instead of a permanent peace treaty. Their view was that Iraq had violated the terms of the cease-fire by breaching two key conditions and thus made the invasion of Iraq a legal continuation of the earlier war. To support this stance, one has to "reactivate" the war resolution from 1991; if a war resolution can be reactivated ten years after the fact, it would imply that almost any nation that has ever been at war that ended in a ceasefire (such as Korea) could have the war restarted if any other nation felt at any time that they were no longer meeting the conditions of the cease fire that ended that war. Since the majority of the United Nations security council members (both permanent and rotating) did not support the attack, it appears that they viewed the attack as not being valid under the 1991 resolution.

However, a resolution drafted and accepted the year before the invasion fully endorsed the use of military action to force Iraq to comply with the United Nations desires, and every country that sat upon the Security Council voted to draft that resolution.

Several nations say the attack violated international law as a war of aggression since it lacked the validity of a U.N. Security Council resolution to authorize military force. The Egyptian former United Nations Secretary General Boutros Boutros-Ghali called the intervention a violation of the UN charter.

The United States and United Kingdom claim it was a legal action which they were within their rights to undertake. Along with Poland and Australia, the invasion was supported by the governments of several European nations, including the Czech Republic, Denmark, Portugal, Italy, Hungary, and Spain.

Many people regarded the attack on Iraq to be hypocritical, when other nations such as Israel are also in breach of UN resolutions and have nuclear weapons; this argument is controversial [1].

Although Iraq was known to have pursued an active nuclear weapons development program previously, as well tried to procure materials and equipment for their manufacture, these weapons and material have yet to be discovered. This casts doubt on some of the accusations against Iraq. However, some believe that the weapons were moved into Syria and Lebanon.

Related slogans and terms

This campaign has featured a variety of new and weighted terminology, much coined by the U.S. government and then repeated by the media. The name "Operation Iraqi Freedom", for example, expresses one viewpoint of the purpose of the invasion. Also notable was the exclusive usage of "regime" to refer to the Saddam Hussein government (see also regime change), and "death squads" to refer to fedayeen paramilitary forces. Members of the Hussein government were called by disparaging nicknames - e.g., "Chemical Ali" (Ali Hassan al-Majid), "Comical Ali" (Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf), "Mrs Anthrax" (Huda Salih Mahdi Ammash) - for propaganda purposes and because Western peoples are unfamiliar with Arabic names.

Other terminology introduced or popularized during the war include:

Media coverage

Media coverage of this war was different in certain ways from that of the Gulf War. The Pentagon established the policy of "embedding" reporters with military units. Viewers in the United States were able to watch U.S. tanks rolling into Baghdad live on television, with a split screen image of the Iraqi Minister of Information claiming that U.S. forces were not in the city. Many foreign observers of the media and especially the television coverage in the USA felt that it was excessively partisan and in some cases "gung-ho"

Another difference was the wide and independent coverage in the World Wide Web demonstrating that for web-surfers in rich countries and the elites in poorer countries, the internet has become mature as a medium, giving about half a billion people access to different versions of events.

However, the coverage itself was intrinsically biased by the fact that internet penetration in Iraq was already very weak (estimate of 12,000 users in Iraq in 2002 [1]), and the deliberate destruction of Iraqi telecommunication facilities by US forces made internet communication even more difficult. Different versions of truth by people who have equal ignorance of first-hand, raw data are by definition a very biased substitute for original, first-hand reports from people living locally.

Al-Jazeera, the Qatar-based news network, which was formed in 1996, gained a lot of worldwide attention for its coverage of the war. Their broadcasts were popular in much of the Arab world, but also to some degree in western nations, with major American networks such as CNN and MSNBC re-broadcasting some of their coverage. Al-Jazeera was well-known for their graphic footage of civilian casualties, which American news media branded as overly sensationalistic. The English website of Al-Jazeera was brought down during the middle of the Iraq war by hackers who saw its coverage as casting a negative view on the American cause.

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American Civil War

(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)


Stainless Banner, adopted on May 26, 1863 by Confederate Secretary of the Navy Stephen Mallory. (compare Stars and Bars)

The American civil war was fought in the United States of America between the northern states, popularly referred to as the "Union", and the seceding southern states (in the U.S., The South), calling themselves the Confederate States of America or the "Confederacy" between 1861 and 1865.

While there is considerable debate about the influence of individual events that led the states to war, the following events are often cited as contributing:

There is little question that the salient issue in the minds of the public and popular press of the time, and the histories written since, was the issue of slavery. Slavery had been abolished in most northern states, but was legal and important to the economy of the Confederacy, which depended on cheap agricultural labor. State sovereignty (for the South) and preservation of the Union (for the North) have both also been cited as issues, but both were reflections of the slavery issue, i.e., could the Federal government force southern states to end slavery or could the southern states leave the Union to preserve slavery?

These names are infrequently used today, but the war was also known in the South as The War Between the States, The War of Northern Aggression, The War of Southern Independence, Mr. Lincoln's War, or simply as The War. More obscure names for the war include The Second American Revolution and The War in Defense of Virginia. Northerners often referred to it as The War of the Rebellion, The War to Save the Union, or The War for Abolition.

The states which seceded consisted of Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas and Virginia. Three 'slave states' did not secede: Delaware, Maryland, and Kentucky. Although Kentucky did not secede, it declared itself neutral in the conflict. Delaware and Maryland were garrisoned by Union forces throughout the war to prevent their secession. Missouri's government split, with a Unionist government in the capitol and a secessionist government-in-exile run from Camden, Arkansas and Marshall, Texas. The state of West Virginia was created by the secession from Virginia of its northwestern counties, and added to the Union in 1863.

The Union was led by President Abraham Lincoln and the Confederacy by President Jefferson Davis.

Historical Summary

It started with Lincoln's victory in the presidential election of 1860, which triggered South Carolina's secession from the Union. Leaders in the state had long been waiting for an event that might unite the South against the antislavery forces. Once the election returns were certain, a special South Carolina convention declared "that the Union now subsisting between South Carolina and other states under the name of the 'United States of America' is hereby dissolved." By February 1, 1861, six more Southern states had seceded. On February 7, the seven states adopted a provisional constitution for the Confederate States of America. The remaining southern states as yet remained in the Union.

Less than a month later, on March 4, 1861, Abraham Lincoln was sworn in as president of the United States. In his inaugural address, he refused to recognize the secession, considering it "legally void". His speech closed with a plea for restoration of the bonds of union. The South, particularly South Carolina, ignored the plea, and on April 12, the South fired upon the Federal troops stationed at Fort Sumter in the Charleston, South Carolina until the troops surrendered.


Abraham Lincoln
16th President
(1861-1865)

As a Confederate force was built up by July 1861 at Manassas, Virginia, a march by Union troops under the command of Maj. Gen. Irvin McDowell on the Confederate forces there, was halted in the First Battle of Bull Run, or First Manassas, whereupon they were forced back to Washington, DC by Confederate troops under the command of Generals Joseph E. Johnston and P.G.T. Beauregard. Alarmed at the loss, and in an attempt to prevent more slave states from leaving the Union, the United States Congress passed the Crittenden-Johnson Resolution on July 25 of that year which stated that the war was being fought to preserve the Union and not to end slavery.

Major General George McClellan took command of the Union Army of the Potomac on July 26 (he was briefly given supreme command of all the Union armies, but was subsequently relieved of that post in favor of Maj. Gen. Henry Halleck), and the war began in earnest in 1862. Ulysses S. Grant gave the Union its first victory of the war, by capturing Fort Henry, Tennessee on February 6 of that year.

McClellan reached the gates of Richmond in the spring of 1862, but when Robert E. Lee defeated him in the Seven Days Campaign, he was relieved of command of the Army of the Potomac. His successor, John Pope, was beaten spectacularly by Lee at Second Bull Run in August. Emboldened, the Confederacy's made its first invasion of the North, when General Lee led 55,000 men of the Army of Northern Virginia across the Potomac River at White's Ford near Leesburg, Virginia into Maryland on September 5. Lincoln then restored McClellan, who won a bloody, almost Pyrrhic victory at the Battle of Antietam near Sharpsburg, Maryland, on September 17, 1862. Lee's army, checked at last, returned to Virginia.

When McClellan failed to follow up on Antietam, he was replaced by Maj. Gen. Ambrose Burnside. Burnside suffered near-immediate defeat at the Battle of Fredericksburg, and was in his turn replaced by Maj. Gen. Joseph Hooker. Hooker, too, proved unable to defeat Lee's army, and was relieved after the Battle of Chancellorsville in May 1863. He was replaced by Maj. Gen. George Meade, who stopped Lee's invasion of Union-held territory at what is sometimes considered the war's turning point, the Battle of Gettysburg (July 1-3, 1863), inflicting 28,000 casualties on Lee's Army of Northern Virginia, and again forcing it to retreat to its namesake state.

While the Confederate forces had some success in the Eastern theater holding on to their capital, fortune did not smile upon them in the West. Confederate forces were driven from Missouri early in the war.


Jefferson Davis
First and only President of the Confederate States of America

Nashville, Tennessee fell to the Union early in 1862. The Mississippi was opened, at least to Vicksburg, with the taking of Island No. 10 and New Madrid, Missouri and then Memphis, Tennessee. New Orleans was captured in January, 1862, allowing the Union forces to begin moving up the Mississippi as well.

The Union's key strategist and tactician was Ulysses S. Grant, who won victories at Fort Donelson, Battle of Shiloh, Vicksburg, Mississippi, and Chattanooga, Tennessee, driving Confederate forces out of Tennessee. Grant understood the concept of total war and realized, along with Lincoln, that only the utter defeat of Confederate forces would bring an end to the war.

At the beginning of 1864, Grant was given command of all Union armies. He chose to make his headquarters with the Army of the Potomac although Meade remained the actual commander of that army. Union forces in the East attempted to maneuver past Lee and fought several battles during that phase of the Eastern campaign: the Battle of the Wilderness, Spotsylvania Court House, and Cold Harbor. An attempt to outflank Lee from the South failed under Generals Butler and Smith, who were 'corked' into the Bermuda Hundred river bend. Grant was tenacious and kept pressing the Army of Northern Virginia under the command of Robert E. Lee. He extended the Confederate army, pinning it down in the Siege of Petersburg and, after two failed attempts (under Siegel and Hunter), finally found a commander, Philip Sheridan, who could clear the threat to Washington DC from the Shenandoah Valley.

Meanwhile General William Tecumseh Sherman marched from Chattanoga on Atlanta and laid waste to much of the rest of Georgia after he left Atlanta and marched to the sea at Savannnah. When Sherman turned north through South Carolina and North Carolina to approach the Virginia lines from the south, it was the end for Lee and his men, and for the Confederacy.

Advantages widely believed to have contributed to the Union's success include:

Lee surrendered his Army of Northern Virginia on 9 April 1865 at Appomattox Court house. Joseph E. Johnston, who commanded Confederate forces in North Carolina, surrendered his troops to Sherman shortly thereafter. The Battle of Palmito Ranch, fought on May 13, 1865, in the far south of Texas was the last land battle of the war and ended with a Confederate victory. All Confederate land forces had surrendered by June 1865. Confederate naval units surrendered as late as November of 1865.

Major Battles

Major battles included First Bull Run, Second Bull Run, Battle of Shiloh, The Seven Days, Antietam, Vicksburg, Gettysburg, and the Siege of Petersburg. A naval battle between the USS Monitor and the CSS Virginia was the first battle in history between steam-powered, iron-armored ships with shell-firing guns. The Union's naval blockade of the Confederate coast was one of the most ambitious up to that time, and was the first major blockade under the Declaration of Paris of 1856.

See also: List of American Civil War battles

Civil War Leaders

Significant Southern leaders included Jefferson Davis, Robert E. Lee, Joseph E. Johnston, Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson, James Longstreet, P.G.T. Beauregard, Braxton Bragg, James Ewell Brown (JEB) Stuart, and Nathan Bedford Forrest.

Northern leaders included Abraham Lincoln, Edwin M. Stanton, Ulysses S. Grant, William Tecumseh Sherman, George B. McClellan, Henry W. Halleck, Joseph Hooker, Ambrose Burnside, George McClellan, Irvin McDowell, Philip Sheridan, George Crook, George Armstrong Custer, Christopher "Kit" Carson, John E. Wool, George G. Meade, and Abner Read.

Aftermath

During the War, Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation freed all slaves held in territory under Confederate control at the time of the Proclamation. Slaves were not freed in the remaining states and parts of the Confederacy until the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment by 3/4 of the states, which did not occur until December of 1865, 8 months after the end of the war. A good deal of ill will among the Southern survivors resulted from the resulting shift of political power to the North, the destruction inflicted on the South by the Union armies as the end of the war approached, and the Reconstruction program instituted in the South by the Union after the war's end.

According to data from the United States Department of Veterans Affairs, the last surviving Union veteran of the conflict, Albert Woolson, died on August 2, 1956 at the age of 109, and the last Confederate veteran, John Salling, died on March 16, 1958 at the age of 112. However, William Marvel investigated the claims of both for a 1991 piece in the Civil War history magazine Blue & Gray. Using census information, he found that Salling was born in 1858, far too late to have served in the Civil War. In fact, he concluded, "Every one of the last dozen recognized Confederates was bogus." He found Woolson to be the last true veteran of the Civil War on either side; he had served as a drummer boy late in the war.

See also: American Civil War spies, Emancipation Proclamation, CSS Hunley, Jim Crow laws, Ku Klux Klan and Reconstruction.

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Dominion War

(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)

In the fictional Star Trek universe, the Dominion War is a war between the Dominion and Cardassians on one side, and the Alpha Quadrant alliance of the United Federation of Planets, Klingon Empire, and the Romulans. The latter portion of the series Star Trek: Deep Space Nine focused on this war.

Warning: Wikipedia contains spoilers.

Background

In 2369, the Cardassian occupation of the planet Bajor ended, the Cardassians having been driven off by various Bajoran resistance factions. These factions then formed a provisional government to oversee the rebuilding of the planet, which had been ecologically, culturally, and financially devastated by the occupation. One of its first official acts was to ask The United Federation of Planets for assistance in this monumental task.

The UFP responded by sending Commander Benjamin Sisko to take command of the space station Terok Nor, an orbital ore processing facility left behind by the Cardassians. This station was re-christened Deep Space Nine, and was to become a diplomatic and commercial center for Bajor. Sisko was tasked by Captain Jean-Luc Picard to do everything, short of violating the Federation's Prime Directive, to ensure that Bajor rebuilt itself enough to win entry into the Federation.

However, not long after the UFP's arrival, Sisko, along with science officer Jadzia Dax discovered a stable wormhole connecting Bajoran territory to the Gamma Quadrant of the Milky Way galaxy, nearly 70,000 light years away, a distance unattainable by any sentient race extant using conventional means. In order to protect Bajoran interests the station was moved from the orbit of Bajor to a point close to the Alpha Quadrant terminus of the wormhole.

It was also discovered that the wormhole is actually home to aliens known to the Bajorans as The Prophets--beings which exist in only one point in space (the wormhole) but all points in time, giving them a very non-linear view of the universe, where effect can precede cause. They, for unrevealed reasons, adopted Sisko as their emissary to the Bajoran people. Sisko didn't like this iconic role, especially since he was treated with religious reverence by the Bajoran people, but eventually learned to accept it, and use it from time to time to further the Federation's goal of helping Bajor to rebuild.

First Contact

Exploration of the Gamma Quadrant took place without major incident for nearly one year. However, on a seemingly routine trade mission by the Ferengi, Quark first heard whispers of the Dominion, which apparently was a union of civilizations similar to the Federation in its goals of mutual defense and trade practices. Quark, under the aegis of Grand Nagus Zek, was authorized to negotiate a trade agreement with the Dominion which was ultimately successful.

However, as races from the Alpha Quadrant began to colonize planets in the Gamma Quadrant and make their presence known to Gamma Quadrant species, disturbing reports about the Dominion began to emerge. The reports seemed to indicate that what the Dominion could not attain through trade would be taken by force. These reports were borne out in 2370 when a huge fleet of Skrreean ships appeared in the Alpha Quadrant, in search of a new homeworld after their old home had been utterly destroyed by Dominion forces.

Toward the end of 2370, Sisko, his son Jake, Quark, and Quark's nephew Nog were visiting an uninhabited Gamma Quadrant planet to do a planetary survey for a school project of Jake and Nog's. It was here that the Jem'Hadar, the Dominion's elite military forces were encountered, and Sisko and Quark were captured by these forces, along with a mysterious alien (later to be identified as a Vorta) named Eris. The Jem'Hadar then sent a representative to DS9 to inform the Alpha Quadrant that no further intrusions into Dominion space would be tolerated, and gave Major Kira Nerys a list of colonies and starships already destroyed for trespassing.

The UFP responded by sending a rescue team consisting of the USS Odyssey, a Galaxy class starship, and all three of DS9's runabouts. They managed to pull off the rescue (Eris included), but got into a fierce battle with Jem'Hadar ships, and the Odyssey was destroyed, with all hands lost when a Jem'Hadar ship made a kamikaze attack upon it. The remaining forces returned to the Alpha Quadrant, where it was discovered Eris was a spy, and Sisko's capture engineered by the Founders, the shadowy ruling class of The Dominion. Once discovered, Eris managed to escape DS9 using transporter technology seemingly far more advanced than Alpha Quadrant species had been able to develop. (Episode: "The Jem'Hadar")

Contact with the Founders

Early in 2371 Sisko returned to Earth for a Starfleet debriefing on the matter, returning to the space station commanding the USS Defiant, a prototype battle cruiser originally developed to fight the Borg, but modified with a Romulan cloaking device to enter the Gamma Quadrant on a peace mission to locate the Founders.

And find the Founders they did, discovering that they are the same race as Odo, DS9's shapeshifting chief of security. Despite a strong longing to return to his home, he found his people's philosophy--that what you can control cannot hurt you--abhorrent. After a short standoff between Federation and Dominion forces, Odo asked to be returned to the Alpha Quadrant with all Federation forces intact. The Founders, led by a character identified only as "the female shapeshifter" (played by Salome Jens), acquiesced to Odo's request, in the hopes that Odo will one day rejoin his people. (Episode: "The Search") This marked the beginning of a Cold War phase between the Federation and Dominion, with limited skirmishes between the two sides, and a steady buildup of military forces.

Obsidian Order and Tal Shiar attack on the Founder homeworld

Meanwhile, the other Alpha Quadrant powers were not sitting still in the face of the threat from The Dominion. The Obsidian Order, a covert Cardassian intelligence force led by Enabran Tain, allied themselves with the Tal Shiar, the Romulan equivalent of the Order. Together, they secretly built a huge fleet of starships in the Orrias sector of Cardassian space, and launched a preemptive strike against the Founders' homeworld, hoping that the Dominion would collapse with the loss of the Founders.

However, the Founders, using their shapeshifting abilities, had infiltrated both groups and actually encouraged the strike, the better to launch a surprise attack and in one stroke, wipe out both the Order and the Tal Shiar. The Dominion stunned the galaxy with this plan, leaving only the UFP and the Klingon Empire as the remaining powers strong enough to stand up to the Dominion. (Episode: "The Die is Cast")

Founder infiltration and conflict with the Klingons

Late in 2371, it was learned that the Founders had infiltrated nearly every major power in the Alpha Quadrant, and the ensuring paranoia about who might or might not be a shapeshifter led to the Klingon invasion of Cardassian territory in 2372. With the fall of the Obsidian Order, the Cardassian citizenry had legitimately overthrown the militaristic government, putting a civilian based government in place. However, the Klingons didn't accept the sudden change in government, and suspected Dominion involvement. Their refusal to break off their invasion, even after it had been proven that the Dominion was not involved, led newly-promoted Captain Sisko to a military confrontation with the Klingons, as the Klingons, under Chancellor Gowron and General Martok attempted to seize DS9. The attack was repulsed--barely--but caused the Klingons to sever all diplomatic relations with the Federation, and to withdraw from the Khitomer Accords, essentially ending decades of peace between the UFP and the Klingon Empire. This seemed to further the Founders goal of destabilization of the Alpha Quadrant as a prelude to their own invasion. (Episode: "The Way of the Warrior")

The paranoia over shapeshifters continued throughout 2372, and certain Starfleet officers responded by trying to implement a coup d'état of the Federation after it was learned that shapeshifters had infiltrated Earth. This led to armed conflict between Starfleet vessels for the first time--since Khan Noonien Singh hijacked the USS Reliant--when Defiant and the USS Lakota exchanged fire. In the nick of time, Sisko was able to force Admiral Leyton to abandon his efforts to impose martial law on the Federation by convincing him to step down and face criminal charges. (Episode: "Paradise Lost")

Tensions between the UFP and the Klingon Empire continued to rise, and war broke out between the two in late 2372 over the Federation's refusal to recognize the Klingon's claim to the Archanis sector. However, the Empire could not effectively fight a war on two fronts, as the Cardassians, in mid-2373 and under the leadership of Gul Dukat (the former prefect of Terok Nor), officially became a member state of the Dominion. This gave the Founders a solid foothold in the Alpha Quadrant, and the Cardassians, who were nearly wiped out by the Klingon invasion, were able to drive the Klingons out of Cardassian space, inflicting heavy losses upon Klingon forces in doing so. With The Dominion now firmly entrenched in the Alpha Quadrant, the Klingon Empire re-affirmed the Khitomer Accords, ending the brief war between the Empire and the UFP. (Episode: "By Inferno's Light")

The Dominion now began sending massive fleets of ships through the wormhole to bolster their presence in the Alpha Quadrant, and to reinforce Cardassian positions. The Federation and Klingon Empire decided that this was an untenable situation, and built a field of space mines at the mouth of the wormhole on the Alpha Quadrant side that were self-replicating and fitted with Klingon cloaking devices. This effectively cut off the Dominion's supply lines to the Alpha Quadrant. However, Gul Dukat and his Dominion advisor, the Vorta Weyoun, considered this an act of war, and launched an attack on Deep Space Nine itself. This battle is generally accepted as the true beginning of the Dominion War. (Episode: "Call to Arms")

Full-Scale War

Dominion occupation of Deep Space Nine

Cardassian and Dominion forces launched their attack on Deep Space Nine to wrest control of the station from the Federation. As UFP and Klingon forces were at the time launching their own raids on several key Dominion shipyards, this attack was successful, and the UFP was forced to abandon the station. However, under advisement from Captain Sisko, the Bajoran government had signed a treaty of non-aggression with the Dominion, and this allowed Bajoran forces to remain on the station. (episode: "Call to Arms") In 2374, while Dukat and Weyoun were trying to figure out a way to safely dismantle the minefield, Major Kira Nerys began her own resistance movement on the station, sowing discord between the Cardassians and Jem'Hadar on the station, particularly between Dukat's second-in-command Damar and Dominion forces. (episode: "Behind the Lines")

In the late spring of 2374, Sisko was able to convince the top brass in Starfleet that the key strategic point of the conflict would not be any one planet, but rather Deep Space Nine itself, so a large fleet of about 1,200 starships was assembled to re-take the station. However, Dominion forces outnumbered the Federation fleet by nearly 3-to-1, and Dukat was very close to dismantling the minefield. (Episode: "Favor the Bold") With nothing left to lose, the Federation launched its assault, and with timely intervention by the Klingons, the Defiant was able to break through Dominion lines and make it to the wormhole just as the minefield was taken down. In a desperate attempt to delay the thousands of ships ready to pour through the wormhole, Sisko asked the Prophets to intervene. They did so, causing the Dominion reinforcements to simply disappear. With Cardassian morale broken, they abandoned the station, and the UFP once again took control. The Federation victory by deus ex machina cost Dukat his sanity, and Damar was put in his place as the Cardassian head of state, though he was much more a Dominion puppet than Dukat. (Episode: "Sacrifice of Angels")

After the recapture of DS9

Even with the Dominion leery of sending any more ships through the wormhole, the combined forces of the Klingon Empire and the UFP were barely holding their own. The Romulans, who had publicly declared their neutrality in the conflict were actually letting Dominion ships fly through their territory in order to make attacks upon the other two major Alpha Quadrant powers. After Dominion forces invaded and captured the planet Betazed, Sisko was convinced, and desperate, that the Klingon/UFP alliance would lose the Dominion War. He then connived, with the assistance of Garak, the only Cardassian with permanent residence on DS9 (and former master spy for the Obsidian Order), to plant false evidence of a Dominion plot to assassinate the Romulan proconsul. The Romulans bought the ploy, and allied themselves with the Federation and Klingons, thus improving the prospects of victory immensely. (Episode: "In the Pale Moonlight")

Around the same time of the alliance with the Romulans, DS9's chief medical officer, Doctor Julian Bashir was made aware of the existence of Section 31, a covert intelligence agency, similar to the Obisidian Order, within the Federation. Section 31 seemed intensely interested in manipulating the war behind the scenes and tried to recruit Bashir into their ranks. Bashir refused, informed Sisko of Section 31's existence, and adopted a "wait and see" attitude. (episode: "Inquisition")

With the Romulans' assistance, the Alpha Quadrant Alliance was able to take from the Dominion the strategically important Chin'Toka system in early 2375, though science officer Jadzia Dax was murdered by Gul Dukat. (episode: "Tears of the Prophets") The Dax symbiont however survived despite the death of its host body, and was joined with a new host to become Ezri Dax. Ezri was posted to DS9 as the station's counselor. (episode: "Afterimage")

Section 31, meanwhile, had also been busy behind the scenes. They managed to infect Odo with a virus that he then unknowingly communicated to the rest of the Founders by merging his form with that of the female shapeshifter's. The disease began to take its toll on the Founders in mid-2375, seriously damaging their ability to lead the war effort. (Episode: "Treachery, Faith, and the Great River") Gul Damar, too, was growing increasingly frustrated with the seemingly stalemated war and his own position as a Dominion puppet. As Cardassian military losses mounted, he began to drink heavily, and often criticized the Dominion's ability to prosecute the war successfully.

The Dominion's position became increasingly precarious, causing the female shapeshifter to form an alliance with the Breen, a relatively unknown space-faring species in the Alpha Quadrant. Their entry into the struggle temporarily turned the tide of the war back to the Dominion's favor. (Episode: "'Til Death Do Us Part") Breen vessels were equipped with a power draining weapon that rendered both UFP and Romulan vessels completely inert. Klingon vessels were largely unaffected, however. With nearly two-thirds of the Alliance's fleet unable to fight against the Breen, the Dominion was able to stabilize its front lines, and re-take the Chin'Toka system, destroying Defiant in that battle. Breen and Jem'Hadar forces also managed to stage a lightning raid on Earth itself, destroying many Starfleet facilities as well as the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco. (Episode: "The Changing Face of Evil")

The Klingons, now at the front lines of the battle almost completely alone, were instructed by Alliance commanders merely to hold the front while Alliance scientists tried to figure out a way to counter the Breen's energy draining weapon. General Martok complied with these orders, but the leader of the Klingon Empire, Chancellor Gowron began to fear that Martok's military prowess would eclipse his own. He stripped command of the war from Martok and assumed leadership himself, often placing Martok in no-win battles and throwing the Alliance's lines into chaos with increasingly dangerous missions in an attempt to cover himself in personal glory. The situation reached a head when DS9's strategic operations officer, Worf, challenged Gowron's leadership in open council. Per Klingon tradition, this meant a duel to the death between the two. Worf killed Gowron in this fight, and the remaining council leaders crowned Worf the new Chancellor of the Klingon Empire. Worf, however, refused this honor, giving it instead to Martok. With the Klingon political landscape somewhat stabilized after decades of chaos, the war once again turned to near-stalemated conditions. (episodes: "When it Rains..." and "Tacking Into the Wind")

Final Assault and Fall of Cardassia

With the Dominion now giving more and more important military decisions, and even a few Cardassian colonies, to the Breen, Gul Damar, with the assistance of newly-promoted Colonel Kira Nerys and Garak, began his own underground resistance movement in an attempt to drive the Dominion out of Cardassian space. Damar was branded a rebel by the Dominion and went into hiding.

Around this time, Alliance scientists were finally able to find a way to defeat the Breen's special weapon, and it was decided that the Alliance was now in a position to take Cardassia itself, given that the Dominion was distracted by Damar's rebellion. The USS São Paulo was re-christened to become the second starship Defiant, with Sisko in command. A three-pronged strike led by Sisko, Chancellor Martok, and Admiral William Ross invaded Cardassian space in an all-or-nothing offensive. (Episode: "Dogs of War")

Damar's attempts at fomenting a popular uprising against the Dominion was wildly successful, finally causing the Dominion to destroy an entire Cardassian metropolis, killing about two million Cardassians. This atrocity caused most Cardassian fleet captains to switch sides, aiding the Alliance's invasion of Cardassian space.

The Founders, facing extinction themselves, abandoned all pretense of being anything but polymorphic supremacists bent on imposing their version of order on the entire galaxy. Thus, they swore they would not surrender, promising a scorched earth war wherein any territory the Alliance managed to take would be so badly damaged, and so many people killed that Alliance victory would hardly be worth the effort. When the female shapeshifter discovered the treachery of the Cardassian fleet, she ordered the Jem'Hadar to exterminate the entire Cardassian race. Thus while Alliance--and Cardassian--starships fought for control of Cardassia Prime from space, the planet itself was being devastated by Jem'Hadar shock troops on the ground. A pyrrhic victory seemed inevitable for the Alliance, as nearly a billion Cardassian civilians were already dead. (Episode: "What You Leave Behind, Part I")

However, Julian Bashir and DS9's chief engineer Miles O'Brien had managed to take the cure for the Section 31 created Founder's disease from the mind of one of its operatives. (episode: "Extreme Measures") The cure was given to Odo, who then rushed to Cardassia Prime. In exchange for the Dominion's peaceful surrender, and the arrest of its Founder, Breen, and Vorta leaders for war crimes, the Alpha Quadrant Alliance allowed Odo to cure the Founders of their disease. A formal declaration of the cessation of hostilities was proclaimed in a ceremony aboard DS9, thus ending a conflict that had consumed nearly three-quarters of the galaxy for nearly seven years. (episode: "What You Leave Behind, Part II")

The Aftermath

The fallout from that war goes mostly undocumented. The political ramifications are immense, as nearly every major Alpha Quadrant power, from the Federation to the Ferengi, underwent a dramatic shift in power. Cardassia lies in ruins, in far worse shape than what the Cardassians themselves did to the planet Bajor, and billions of people gave their lives in the struggle. Odo returned to the Founder's homeworld to teach them about the other races in the galaxy in an attempt to reform Founder society. The deceit which brought the Romulans into the war is still undiscovered.

Although not directly connected to the series, the Star Trek computer game Star Trek: Bridge Commander takes place shortly after the Dominion War and shows some of the would-be political implications of the war.

Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "Dominion War."

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English Civil War

(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)

The English Civil War (correctly the British Civil War) was a civil war fought between King Charles I, his supporters, and the Long Parliament, led by Oliver Cromwell. It began in the Summer of 1642 and continued until early 1649, when Charles I was tried and executed by members of Parliament.

It is often simply referred to in Britain as the "civil war", sometimes leading to confusion with the American Civil War. It was not, however, the only civil war ever fought in England or Britain. (See List of English civil wars). It is sometimes referred to as the "English Revolution" and (especially in Royalist circles) as "the Great Rebellion".

Prelude to the English Civil War

Looking back on the events leading the to civil war, one would not imagine that it could have ever taken place. It was less than forty years since the death of Queen Elizabeth. After her, England in the era of Charles I was a fairly peaceful place, and had been so in living memory. Charles had real hope of fulfilling his father's, James I of England (James VI of Scotland), dream of uniting the entirety of the British Isles in a single United Kingdom. Charles also shared his father's feelings in regard to the power of the crown, which James had described as "little Gods on Earth", or "Divine Right of Kings". Although pious and with little personal ambition, Charles demanded outright loyalty in return for "just rule". Any questioning of his orders was insulting, at best. It was this later trait and a series of events that tested it, seemingly minor on their own, that led to a serious break between Charles and the Parliment, eventually leading to war.

Prior to the English Civil War, Parliament was not a permanent branch of English government, but temporary advisory committees summoned by the English monarch whenever additional tax revenue was required, and subject to dissolution at the monarch's will. Because responsibility for collecting taxes was in the hands of the English gentry, the English monarchs needed their help in order to guarantee that revenue came in without difficulty. If the gentry were to refuse to collect the King's taxes, the King would be powerless to compel them. Parliaments allowed representatives of the gentry to meet, converse and send policy proposals to the King (in the form of Bills). These representatives did not, however, have any means to force their will upon the King.

Mounting Concern

One of the first events to cause concern about Charles I was his marriage to a French Roman Catholic princess, Henrietta Maria, shortly after his accession to the throne in 1625. These royal marriages were commonplace at the time, but his choice of a Catholic cast him in the role of potential Papist among the small but powerful Puritan minority in Parliment, who made up around one third of the members.

A potentially more troublesome issue was Charles' insistance in joining the wars raging in Europe, which he saw as something of a holy crusade. This alone might not have been a problem, except that Charles had placed his own "favourite", George Villiers, 1st Duke of Buckingham, in command. Parliment was rather suspicious of Buckingham, who they had to deal with under James as well, and eventually they decided to support the war effort only on the provisio that Buckingham could be be recalled if he did not perform. The Parliament of 1625 then granted him the right to collect customs duties only for a year and not, as was usual, for his entire reign. After a disastrous raid on France, Parliament dismissed Buckingham in 1626, and Charles, furious at what he considered insolence, dismissed the Parliament.

Petition of Right

Having disolved Parliament, and being unable to raise money without Parliament, the king assembled a new one in 1628. Among the members elected was Oliver Cromwell. The new Parliament drew up the Petition of Right in 1628, and Charles accepted it as a concession to get his subsidy. Amongst other things the Petition referred to the Magna Carta and said that a citizen should have: (a) freedom from arbitrary arrest and imprisonment, (b) freedom from non-parliamentary taxation, (c) freedom from the enforced billeting of troops, and (d) freedom from martial law.

However Charles was determined to rule without summoning another Parliament, and this required him to devise new means of raising extraordinary revenue. Among the most controversial of these was the revival and extension of ship money. This tax had been levied in the medieval era on seaports, but Charles extended it to inland counties as well. As a levy for the Royal Navy, ship money was, according to Charles and his supporters, needed for the defence of the realm therefore within the legitimate scope of the royal prerogative.

The tax had not been approved by Parliament, however, and a number of prominent men refused to pay it on these grounds. Reprisals against Sir John Eliot, one of the prime movers behind the Petition of Right, and the prosecution of William Prynne and John Hampden (who were fined after losing their case 7-5 for refusing to pay ship money, taking a stand against the legality of the tax) aroused widespread indignation. Charles' use of the Court of Star Chamber in this issue also served to anger many, as the court had always been seen as the citizenry's last appeal against the monarch's power, and was now apparently being used against them.

The Eleven Years' Tyranny

Charles I managed to avoid a Parliament for a decade, a time known as the "Eleven Years' Tyranny". This policy broke down when he provoked a series of disastrous and expensive wars against the Scots: the Bishops' Wars of 1639 and 1640.

Charles believed in a pomp-and-ceremony version of the Church of England, a feeling held by his main political advisor, Archbishop William Laud. Laud had become the Archbishop of Canterbury in 1633 and started a series of reforms in the Church to make it more ceremonial, starting with the replacement of the wooden communion tables with stone altars. Puritans accused Laud of trying to reintroduce Catholicism, and when they complained Laud had them arrested. In 1637 John Bastwick, Henry Burton and William Prynne had their ears cut off for writing pamphlets attacking Laud's views - a rare penalty for gentlemen to suffer, and one that aroused anger.

To make matters worse, Laud and Charles both agreed that a necessary first step to true unification of Scotland and England was to introduce a common prayer book. The Scots reacted explosively when it was introduced in the spring of 1638, and sought to purge bishops from the Scots church altogether. It took a year, but Charles raised an army in 1639 and sent it north to end the rebellion. After a disastrous skirmish he decided to seek a truce, the Pacification of Berwick, and was humiliated by being forced to agree not only to not to interfere with religion in Scotland, but to pay the Scottish war expenses as well.

Recall of Parliament

Charles needed to suppress the rebellion in his northern realm, he was, however, insufficiently funded and was forced to seek money from a recalled Parliament in 1640, whose numbers included Robert Blake. Parliament took this appeal for money as an opportunity to discuss grievances against the Crown; moreover, they were opposed to the military option. Charles took exception to this lese majesté and dismissed the Parliament; the name "the Short Parliament" was derived from this summary dismissal. Without Parliament's support, Charles attacked Scotland again and was comprehensively defeated; the Scots, seizing the moment, took Northumberland and Durham.

Meanwhile another of Charles's chief advisers, Thomas Wentworth, had risen to the role Lord Deputy of Ireland in 1632 and brought peace to the island by forming an alliance of Roman Catholics against the Protestants. In 1639 he had been recalled to England and in 1640 granted the title Earl of Strafford, as Charles attempted to have him work his magic again in Scotland. This time he was not so lucky, and the English forces fled the field in their second encounter with the Scots in 1640.

The Long Parliament

In desperate straits, Charles was obliged to summon Parliament again in November of 1640; this was the "Long Parliament". None of the issues raised in the Short Parliament had been addressed, and again Parliament took the opportunity to raise them, refusing to be dismissed. Under the leadership of John Pym and John Hampden, a law was passed which stated that Parliament should be reformed every three years, and refused the king's right to dissolve Parliament. Other laws were passed making it illegal for the king to impose his own taxes, and later passed a law that gave members control over the king's ministers.

With Ireland apparently peaceful after Strafford's able administration of eight years, Charles thought he saw a way out -- Strafford had raised an Irish Catholic army and was prepared to use it against Scotland. Of course the very thought of a Catholic army campaigning against the Scots from protestant England was considered outrageous by the parliamentary party. In early 1641 Strafford was arrested and sent to the Tower of London on the charge of treason. John Pym made the claim that Wentworth's statements of being ready to campaign against "the kingdom" were in fact directed at England itself. The case could not be proven, so the House of Commons, led by John Pym and Henry Vane, resorted to a Bill of Attainder. Unlike treason, attainder required only the burden of proof, but it also required the king's signature. Charles, still incensed over the Common's handling of Buckingham, refused. Strafford himself, hoping to head off the war he saw looming, wrote to the king and asked him to reconsider. Thomas Wentworth, Earl of Strafford, was executed on May 12th, 1641.

Instead of saving the country from war, Wentworth's sacrifice in fact doomed it to one. Within months the Irish Catholics, fearing a resurgence of Protestant power, stuck first and the entire country soon decended into chaos. Rumors started that the Irish were being supported by the king, and Puritan members of the Commons were soon agitating that this was the sort of thing Charles had in store for all of them.

On January 4, 1642, Charles attempted to arrest 5 members of the Parliament (John Hampden, John Pym, Arthur Haselrig, Denzil Holles, and William Strode) on a charge of treason; this attempt failed, however, as they had been tipped off and gone into hiding prior to the arrival of the king's troops. When the troops marched into Parliament the officer in charge demanded of the Speaker where the five were. The Speaker replied that he 'had neither eyes to see nor ears to hear save as this house [the Commons] directs me.' In other words, the Speaker was a servant of Parliament, rather than of the King. Parliamentary supporters took to arms to protect the five men as they escaped across London.

The First English Civil War

The English Parliament, having controverted the king's authority, raised an army led by Robert Devereux, 3rd Earl of Essex. The purpose of this army was twofold: it was to defeat both an invasion from Scotland and also the attempts by the king and his supporters to restore the monarchy's power. Charles I, in the meantime, had left London and also raised an army using the archaic system of a Commission of Array. He raised the royal standard at Nottingham in August.

In 1642 the military governor of Kingston upon Hull, Sir John Hotham declared the city for the Parliamentarian cause and refused the King entry into the city and its large arsenal. Charles took great personal affront to this act, and declared Hotham a traitor. Charles I besieged the city unsuccessfully. This siege precipitated open conflict between the Parliamentarian and Royalist causes.

At the outset of the conflict, although the Royal Navy and most English cities favoured Parliament, the King found considerable support in rural communities; however much of the country was neutral. It is thought that between them both sides had only in the region of 15,000 men. However, the war quickly spread and eventually involved every level of society throughout the British Isles. Many areas attempted to remain neutral but found it impossible to withstand both the King and Parliament. On one side the king and his supporters fought for traditional government in Church and state. On the other, supporters of Parliament sought radical changes in religion and economic policy, and major reforms in the distribution of power at the national level. In addition, Parliament was not the united front portrayed in much of later history. At one point in the nine years of war there were more members of Parliament and Lords in the King's parliament than there were at Westminster.

Parliament did, however, have more resources at its disposal, due to its possession all major cities including the large arsenals at Hull and London. For his part, Charles hoped that quick victories would negate Parliament's advantage in material, which precipitated the first battle, the first siege of Hull in July 1642 which provided a decisive victory for Parliament.

A latter battle at Edgehill was inconclusive, but regarded by the Royalists as a victory. One of the king's outstanding leaders was his nephew, Prince Rupert of the Palatinate, a dashing cavalry commander. Playing a minor part in the battle on the other side was a cavalry troop raised by a country gentleman, evangelical puritan, and former Member of Parliament named Oliver Cromwell. Oliver Cromwell was later to devise the New Model Army system still evident in military organisation today. This was characterised by a unified command structure and professionalism, which would firmly swing military advantage towards Parliament. The second action of the war was the stand-off at Turnham Green which saw Charles forced to withdraw to Oxford. This was to be his base for the remainder of the war.

In 1643 the Royalist forces won at Adwalton Moor and gained control of most of Yorkshire. Subsequent victories in the west of England at Lansdowne and at Roundway Down also went to the Royalists. Prince Rupert then was able to take Bristol. In the same year, Oliver Cromwell formed his troop of "Ironsides", a disciplined unit which demonstrated his military ability. With their assistance, he was victorious at the Battle of Gainsborough in July.

After an inconclusive battle at Newbury in September, on October 11, 1643, the Parliamentarian army won the Battle of Winceby giving them control of Lincoln. Political manoeuvring on both sides now led Charles to negotiate a ceasefire in Ireland, freeing up English troops to fight on the Royalist side, while Parliament offered concessions to the Scots in return for aid and assistance.

Parliament won at Marston Moor in 1644, gaining York with the help of the Scots. Cromwell's conduct in this battle was decisive, and marked him out as a potential political as well as a military leader. The defeat at the Battle of Lostwithiel in Cornwall, however, was a serious reverse for Parliament in the south-west of England.

In 1645 Parliament reorganized its main forces into the New Model Army, under the command of Sir Thomas Fairfax, with Cromwell as his second-in-command and Lieutenant-General of Horse. In two decisive engagements, the Battle of Naseby on June 14 and at Langport on July 10, Charles's armies were effectively destroyed.

Capture of Charles

Left with little recourse, Charles fled north, seeking refuge with the Scots in 1646 after disbanding his forces. This was the end of the First English Civil War.

Charles was ransomed by Parliament and held captive at Holdenby House whilst Parliament drew up plans. In the meantime, Parliament began to demobilize and disband the army. The army was unhappy about issues such as arrears of pay and living conditions and resisted the disbandment. Eventually the army kidnapped Charles in an attempt to negotiate using their hostage as a bargaining piece. He spent three months at Hampton Court Palace, before escaping to the Isle of Wight, where he was recaptured and imprisoned in Carisbrooke Castle. Increasingly concerned, the army marched to London in August 1647 and debated proposals of their own at Putney.

The Second English Civil War

Charles took advantage of this deflection of attention away from him to negotiate a new agreement with the Scots, again promising church reform on December 28, 1647. Although Charles himself was still a prisoner, this agreement led inexorably to the "Second Civil War".

A series of royalist rebellions and a Scottish invasion in July 1648 took place. All were defeated by the now powerful standing army. This betrayal by Charles caused Parliament to debate whether Charles should be returned to power at all. Those who still supported Charles's place on the throne tried once more to negotiate with him. Unpaid parliamentarian troops in Wales changed sides; the revolt was firmly put down by Cromwell.

Furious that Parliament were still countenancing Charles as a ruler, the army marched on parliament and conducted "Pride's Purge" (named after the commanding officer of the operation, Thomas Pride). 45 Members of Parliament (MPs) were arrested; 146 were kept out of parliament. Only 75 were allowed in, and then only at the army's bidding. This Rump Parliament was ordered to set up a high court of justice in order to try Charles I for treason in the name of the people of England.

Trial of Charles for Treason

Although Cromwell had some difficulty in finding judges to take part, in 1648, by a 68 to 67 vote, the Parliament found Charles I of England guilty of treason, being a "tyrant, traitor, murderer and public enemy". He was executed at the Palace of Whitehall in 1649. The majority of those who signed his death warrant were themselves executed or imprisoned upon the later Restoration of the Monarchy.

Ireland and Scotland

Thanks to former Member of Parliament Admiral Robert Blake blockading Prince Rupert's fleet in Kinsale, Oliver Cromwell was able to land at Dublin on August 15, 1649 with the army to quell Royalist forces in Ireland, and later in Scotland (1649-1650) to finally restore an uneasy peace. Resistance continued in Scotland under the valiant James Graham, Marquis of Montrose, whose forces were finally defeated at Carbisdale on April 27, 1650, and Montrose was ignominiously executed.

Not all resistance had yet died out. Charles II was crowned in Scotland, claiming that the throne was rightfully his. Cromwell beat the Scottish Royalists at Dunbar on September 3, 1650, but was unable to prevent Charles from marching deep into England. Cromwell finally engaged the new king at Worcester on September 3, 1651, and beat him. Charles II fled abroad, ending the civil wars. The Commonwealth of England was then established, with Oliver Cromwell as Lord Protector of England.

The victory made him very unpopular in Scotland and Ireland which, as nominally independent nations, were effectively conquered by English forces. In particular, Cromwell's suppression of the Royalists in Ireland during 1649 still has a strong resonance for many Irish people. The massacre of nearly 3,500 people in Drogheda after its capture -- comprising around 2,700 Royalist soldiers and all the men in the town carrying arms, including civilians, prisoners, and Catholic priests -- is one of the historical memories that has driven Irish-English and Catholic-Protestant strife during the last three centuries.

Aftermath

It's estimated that around 10% of the British population may have died during the civil wars. As was usual in war, more deaths were caused by disease than by combat.

The wars left Britain as the only country in Europe without a monarch. In the wake of victory many of the ideals, and many of the idealists, were set aside. England, and later all of Britain, was ruled by the republican government of the Commonwealth of England during 1649 - 1653 and 1659 - 1660. Between the two periods, and due to infighting amongst various factions in parliament, Oliver Cromwell ruled over The Protectorate as Lord Protector, effectively a military dictator, until his death.

While the monarchy was subsequently restored, the civil wars effectively set Britain on course to become a parliamentary democracy, and help it avoid the later European republican movements that followed Napoleon's victory in 18th century France. Specifically, future monarchs became wary of pushing Parliament too hard, while in 1662 Parliament's factions became political parties (later becoming the Tories and Whigs) with competing views and the ability to influence decisions of the monarch.

Theories relating to the English Civil War

Throughout the greater part of the 20th century, two schools of thought dominated theoretical explanations of the Civil War: the Marxists and the 'Whigs'. Both of them explained the English seventeenth century in terms of long-term trends.

Whigs explained the Civil War as the result of a centuries-long struggle between Parliament, especially the House of Commons, and the monarchy. Parliament fought to defend the traditional rights of Englishmen, while the monarchy attempted on every occasion to expand its right to dictate law arbitrarily. The most important Whig historian, S.R. Gardiner, popularized the idea that the civil war could be described as the 'Puritan Revolution' which challenged the repressive nature of the Stuart church and paved the way for the religious toleration of the restoration. Puritanism, in this view, was the natural ally of a people seeking to preserve their traditional rights against the arbitrary power of the monarchy.

The Marxist school of thought, which became popular in the 1940s, interpreted the Civil War as a bourgeois revolution. In the words of Christopher Hill, "the Civil War was a class war." On the side of reaction was the landed aristocracy and its ally, the established church. On the other side were (again, according to Hill) "the trading and industrial classes in town and countryside, to the yeomen and progressive gentry, and to wider masses of the population whenever they were able by free discussion to understand what the struggle was really about." The Civil War was the point in English history at which the wealthy middle classes, already a powerful force in society, liquidated the outmoded medieval system of English government. Like the Whigs, the Marxists found a place for the role of religion in their account. Puritanism was a moral system that ideally suited the bourgeois class, and so the Marxists idenitified puritans as inherently bourgeois.

Beginning in the 1970s, a new generation of historians began mounting challenges to the Marxist and Whig theories. This began with the publication in 1973 of the anthology "The Origins of the English Civil War" (edited by Conrad Russell). These historians disliked the way that Marxists and Whigs explained the Civil War in terms of long-term trends in English society. The new historians called for, and began producing, studies which focussed on the minute particulars of the years immediately preceding the war, thus returning in some ways to the sort of contingency based historiography of Clarendon's famous contemporary history of the civil war. As a result, they have demonstrated that the pattern of allegiances in the war did not fit the theories of Whig and Marxist historians. Puritans, for example, did not necessarily ally themselves with Parliamentarians, and many of them were not bourgeois; many bourgeois fought on the side of the King; many landed aristocrats supported Parliament.

The new generation of historians (who are commonly called 'Revisionists') have discredited large sections of the Whig and Marxist interpretations of the war. They have not, however, supplied a single coherent explanation of their own. Revisionism is a set of scholarly principles rather than a school of thought.

Re-enactments

There are two large historical societies, The Sealed Knot and The English Civil War Society, that regularly re-enact events and battles of the Civil War in full period costume.

See also

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Finnish War

(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)

The Finnish War was fought between Sweden and Russia from February 1808 to September 1809. As a result of the war Finland became an autonomous grand duchy under the Russian tzar.

Background

In the treaty of Tilsit in 1807 Napoleon and the Russian tzar Alexander I decided that Russia should force Sweden to join the Continental System.

The war

On February 21, 1808 Russian troops crossed the border. At the same time southern Sweden was threatened by an attack from Denmark. The plan of the Swedish army under Johan Adam Cronstedt was to retreat into Ostrobothnia leaving only the strongly fortified Sveaborg behind. The fort surrendered although there was enough ammunition and food to last several months.

Under a new commander Carl Johan Adlercreutz, the Swedish army counter-attacked and halted the Russian offensive at the Battle of Siikajoki. Although the Swedes were successful for a while they didn't receive the reinforcements that were needed. Adlercreutz fought a defensive battle at Oravais, but lost and was forced to retreat. The day before Georg Carl von Döbeln had won the legendary Battle of Jutas.

On November 19 the convention of Olkijoki was signed and the Swedish army was forced to leave Finland.

Battles

Major commanders

Aftermath

The Finnish war was finished with the treaty of Fredrikshamn on September 17, 1809.

See also: Finnish Civil War, Lands of Sweden, Johan Ludvig Runeberg, War and Peace in Russia, 1796-1825

The Winter War is sometimes called the Russo-Finnish War.

Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "Finnish War."

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First Opium War

(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)

zh-cn:第一次鸦片战争

The First Opium War was a trade-inspired war between the United Kingdom and the Qing Empire in China from 1839 to 1842. It is often seen as the first display of European military superiority over the Chinese. This conflict led to a long string of anti-Western sentiment from the Chinese, that arguably continues to this day.

Trading goods from China were extremely lucrative for Europeans, but suffered from one major problem: China was so large and reasonably well-developed that it was difficult to find products that the Chinese wished to import. Silver was one, to the extent that the drain on European specie metals was noticeably affecting the economy. Casting about for other possibilities, opium was discovered. Between 1821 and 1837 imports of the drug increased five-fold.

The Chinese government attempted to end this trade, on public health grounds --numerous opium addicts were appearing in trading ports throughout China. The effort was largely successful, with the official in charge of the effort Lin Zexu, eventually forcing the British Chief Superintendent of Trade in China, Charles Elliott to hand over all remaining stocks of opium for destruction in May 1839.

However, the next month two British sailors murdered a Chinese man, and were tried under the principle of extraterritoriality: the sailors were brought to justice in a British court in Canton (Guangzhou). The Chinese, however, demanded that the principle be abrogated and the two men handed over to Chinese custody.

Refusing, the British were expelled from China. Preparing for war, they seized Hong Kong (then a minor outpost) as a base. Fighting began in July, when the HMS Volage and HMS Hyacinth defeated 29 Chinese ships. The next year, the British captured the Bogue forts which guarded the mouth of the Pearl River -- the waterway between Hong Kong and Canton. By January 1841, their forces commanded the high ground around Canton, then defeated the Chinese at the nearby city of Ningpo (modern-day Ningbo) and the military post of Chinhai.

By the middle of 1842, the British had defeated the Chinese at the mouth of their other great trading river, the Yangtze, and had occupied Shanghai. The war finally ended in August 1842, with the Treaty of Nanking.

The treaty committed the Chinese to free trade, including that of opium. Hong Kong island was ceded to the UK, and the Treaty Ports of Canton, Amoy (Xiamen), Foochow (Fuzhou), Shanghai, and Ningpo were opened to all traders. Reparations were also paid by the Chinese.

The ease with which the British forces had defeated the Chinese armies seriously affected the Qing dynasty's prestige. This almost certainly contributed to the Taiping Rebellion (1850-1862). For the victors, the Opium War paved the way for the opening up of the lucrative Chinese market and Chinese society for missionary purposes.

See Also

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First War against Napoleon

(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)

The First War against Napoleon was the first involvement by Sweden in the Napoleonic Wars. Sweden joined the Third Coalition by declaring war on France on October 1 1805. The hostilities ended after a ceasefire at Schlatkow on September 7, 1807 and the War was concluded by the Treaty of Paris on January 6, 1810.

See also: Second War against Napoleon, List of Swedish wars, Absolute monarchy in Sweden

Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "First War against Napoleon."

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Franco-Prussian War

(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)


Battle of Mars Le Tour Larger image
The Franco-Prussian War (July 19, 1870 - May 10, 1871) was waged between the Empire of France and the Kingdom of Prussia. The conflict marked the culmination of tension between the two powers following Prussia's rise to dominance in Germany, still a loose federation of quasi-independent territories.

The immediate cause of the war was the candidacy of the German prince Leopold of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen for the Spanish throne, which had been vacant since the revolution of S